YouTube Now Helps You Make Movies…Without A Camera

Jason Kincaid

Jason Kincaid worked as a writer for TechCrunch from April 2008 through 2012. He grew up in Danville, California and later relocated to UCLA in Los Angeles, California, where he studied biology with a minor in ‘Society and Genetics’. You can reach him at jkincaid@gmail.com → Learn More

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011


By now you’re undoubtedly familiar with the incredible amount of footage that’s uploaded to YouTube — the current count is 35 hours of video uploaded every minute. And with video cameras integrated into smartphones, tablets, and computers these days (not to mention dedicated video cameras) it’s easier than ever to record that content. Unfortunately, there are still plenty of people who simply don’t have access to recording equipment. Today, YouTube is looking to do something about that.

The site has just launched a new portal at YouTube.com/create where you can design your own video clips using GoAnimate, Stupeflix, or Xtranormal, each of which lets you ‘build’ custom videos featuring virtual avatars, custom speech, and more.

Each of these third party apps has now been integrated into YouTube. Choose one, and you’ll jump into their editing interface where you can put together a video for free. Each of them also offers freemium options (more sound options, animations, etc.) which you can pay to access.

YouTube says there’s no financial relationship between these partners — it just wanted to give everyone a chance to participate on the site (the third parties will obviously benefit from the exposure, though). And while it was already possible to crosspost a video from GoAnimate, Stupedflix, or Xtranormal to YouTube, this makes the process more seamless and will help introduce the apps to new users.

There’s just one problem, at least for now: the third parties are responsible for hosting their editors, and they’re currently under heavy load so they aren’t working very well at the moment. YouTube says that the partners will be working to compensate for this increased load and that they should perform better soon.

I tried to make a video on Xtranormal but couldn’t get it to work. But here’s a classic video built using the tool:



Company: YouTube
Website: youtube.com
Launch Date: February 2005
Funding: $11.5M

YouTube provides a platform for you to create, connect and discover the world’s videos. The company recently redesigned the site around its hundreds of millions of channels. Partners from major movie studios, record labels, web original creators, viral stars, and millions more all have channels on YouTube. YouTube is predominantly an ad-supported platform, but also offers rental options for a growing number of movie titles. YouTube was founded in 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, who...

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